Recipes and news from the makers of Zest Recipe Manager

Although they can be nondescript from the outside, the Hammams (public baths) of Marrakech are a well known tourist attraction (and, I can attest, well worth a visit!). The part most tourists don’t get to see, though, is what happens next door to (or underneath) these baths in the fires that heat the rooms and waters. If you pay these a visit you might be surprised to find several tall terracotta pots stacked among the coals throughout the day. These pots are known as tangia, and inside you’ll find a dish of the same name. The constant heat of the fires is ingeniously harnessed to produce a fragrant stew of lamb on the bone, cooked slowly over many hours until meltingly tender.

What a great way to cook! It’s so simple that tangia is known as a bachelor’s dish. All you need to do is take your pot to the markets in the morning to gather your lamb and preferred mix of spices from your favourite stalls, top up with some water and seal before handing over to the fire keeper to cook throughout the day. Come dinner time you swing back by the baths and pick up a perfect stew! Of course I don’t have the same luxury here in Sydney, but a good cast iron dish (with tight fitting lid) and low oven make an admirable substitute for the real tangia.

Finding an authentic recipe is not easy, and I suspect it varies quite a bit in reality in any case. I took some tips from the blog The View From Fez, which had the most detailed description of the daily ritual I found. But I’ve modified the recipe quite a bit by using a whole lamb shoulder (which is easier to come by in my experience), some butter rather than all olive oil (in Morocco they would actually use smen, a fermented butter), and a different treatment of herbs and spices. If you have a favoured ras el hanout (Moroccan spice blend) then by all means use that in place of most of the spice in this recipe, though for fragrance and colour I’d still recommend additional saffron.

The result is a perfect winter dish: meltingly tender lamb in a fragrant spiced sauce with sweet chunks of garlic and onion. The sauce is thin but perfect to serve on cous cous which soaks up the goodness. Add plenty of parsley as a fresh contrast and enjoy!

Moroccan Lamb Shoulder Tangia

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 4 hours

Total time: 4 hours 10 mins

Serves: 6

Be transported to Marrakech for the night with this delightfully simple, meltingly tender lamb stew!

Ingredients

1.6kg lamb shoulder, bone in, trimmed of excess fat

25g butter

1 small preserved lemon, skin only, roughly chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 tablespoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons paprika

small pinch saffron

10 whole cloves garlic, peeled

1 onion, chopped into 6-8 large chunks

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt to taste

For the cous cous:

2 cups instant cous cous

2 cups water

1 bunch parsley, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Add the spices, preserved lemon, garlic, onion and water to an oven dish with a lid (a cast iron dutch oven is ideal). Coat the lamb with olive oil and plenty of salt, then place on top of the other ingredients.

Cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, when the lamb pulls apart easily. Remove from the oven and skim and excess oil from the sauce with a spoon (a little remaining fat is OK, it will combine nicely with the cous cous). Set the lamb aside to rest while you make the cous cous.

Place the cous cous in a large bowl. Boil the water and pour over the cous cous, then immediately cover and allow to stand for 5 minutes to cook. Remove the cover, season with 1 teaspoon of salt and separate the grains by stirring with a fork. Add the parsley and stir through to mix.

To serve line each bowl with a layer of cous cous, top with chunks of lamb, onion and garlic then pour over a generous help of sauce to soak in. Garnish with additional parsley.

With the colder weather approaching and with it the perpetual cycle of germs brought home from daycare, I think you will find this recipe very handy to nurse the poorly darlings.

It was a testing weekend with bubby contracting conjunctivitis and hubby debilitated by a mysterious bug that was even worse than the dreaded “Man Flu” (Yes! now you understand what kind of weekend I had! :)) So I was left holding the fort together with my trusty stead, Mozart the not-so-mini schnauzer who was very good with emotional support.

Miss One also seemed to have lost her appetite and it was a real struggle to get her to take enough fluids. Being a first time mum, I even umm’ed and ahh’ed several times about whether to take her to hospital in the middle of the night as I was concerned about her being dehydrated. Luckily she came around the next morning and accepted some milk so I waited till the medical centre opened to see the GP.

This bout of illness in our household was the prompt for this chicken soup recipe – chicken soup is well known miracle comfort food for illness after all, especially if it’s named after some female relative. I almost called it “the Cheat’s chicken soup” or “the lazy mum’s chicken soup” but it just lacked the cosiness of something like Nanna Rosie or Aunt Dotty and also I decided to cut myself and all the busy mums out there a bit of slack. We should be kinder to ourselves and give ourselves credit for getting dinner on the table while juggling everything else, especially sick kids (and husbands)! So Busy Mummy’s chicken and corn soup it is!

This is a simple soup but it does the job – Miss One loved it and I got some good stuff into her – fluid and all. She seems to resort to moist foods when she’s unwell and soups seem to be a hit.

So where I “cheat” is using a Campbell’s chicken and corn tinned soup as the soup base. Instead of following the instructions on the tin, I mix it with 1.5 tins of water, followed by all the fresh ingredients – corn kernels, shiitake mushrooms and chicken. That’s where it ends for the soup served for bubs.

But to make it a little more special for the grown-ups (and sick husbands!), I prepared ginger matchsticks and coriander leaves to be added to the soup as desired. So result is that I had personalised chicken soup for both my sick DD and DH. And then the next day, I added some cooked rice to the soup for Miss One to give it a bit more bulk and she happily ate that too. Happy days.

So next time your loved ones need a bit of comfort food to nurse their colds, give this a go.

And a reminder, make your busy lives just that little bit easier by having a searchable storage for all your favourite recipes: Zest Recipe Manager!

Baby Zest – A Busy Mum’s Chicken & Corn Soup

Recipe Type: soup

Author: Jane Sankey

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 12 mins

Total time: 17 mins

Serves: 6 cups

A quick and easy chicken soup to comfort the little bub when she needs that extra cuddle

For a quick midweek meal, it’s great to have a few spice mix ideas on hand to pair with different meats. And when it comes to spicing up lamb you can’t go past Moroccan style. Whether you’re aiming for the full glory of a ras-el-hanout mix, or just the simple combination of cumin and coriander I use here, your lamb will never be boring again. The novel addition of a honey pistachio crust adds a little sweetness and crunch to keep you interested!

Don’t fret over the crust, there’s no need to aim for a perfect coating as you can see above! Just use a little of honey and a bit of cajoling to get some crunch on top of each cutlet. It only takes a minute and makes a huge difference.

Pistachio Crusted Moroccan Lamb

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 6 mins

Total time: 11 mins

Serves: 2-3

The basis of a quick mid-week meal, anything but boring!

Ingredients

6 lamb cutlets

3 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon honey

40g pistachios, toasted and well crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

pinch of salt

Instructions

Place the cutlets in a mixing bowl and coat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the coriander, cumin and salt then stir well to coat the meat with the spices.

Warm the remaining tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a medium to high heat. Add the cutlets and cook to your preference (I prefer medium rare which takes 2-3 minutes per side for thicker cutlets).

Remove the lamb from the heat to rest. While it is still quite hot lightly brush the top of each cutlet with honey and scatter over a layer of pistachio. Press down lightly so the pistachio stays put (it only needs to stick enough to not fall everywhere as you eat).

Serve with couscous and a green salad.

Notes

The flavour of spices can vary a lot based on how fresh they are. If you have the time to toast and freshly grind your own coriander and cumin seed you won’t need to use as much and you’ll have even better flavour. But for a mid-week meal I figure most of us reach for pre-ground spices!

This recipe has everything: spices and nuts, sweet and sour, moisture and crunch. And yet it’s simple to throw together and easy to experiment with! I’ve settled on koftas with fresh flatbreads as my favourite combination, but you could easily have these as burgers or mouth watering meatballs! The secret to a good kofta, as I picked up from Tessa Mallos’ Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook, is lots of parsley. A whole bunch may seem like overkill but I find it complements the rich lamb mince perfectly.

If you have the time do consider making your own bread to go with these, it makes a world of difference. For a quick midweek meal choose a very thin wrap or small pita pockets so the bread doesn’t overwhelm the dish. Or just go full caveman: ditch the bread and wrap the koftas with the lettuce!

Start with the onion jam. Warm a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saucepan over a low heat. Add the onions with a pinch of salt and pepper then cover and cook slowly, stirring regularly, to completely soften the onions. After 25 minutes remove the cover and add the vinegar, then cook down for a further 5 minutes.

While the onions are softening you can start preparing the lamb. Combine the lamb, parsley, spices and pine nuts in a bowl, season with salt and pepper then mix thoroughly to combine. Form into koftas by taking large tablespoons of mince and shaping them in your palms. It helps to keep your hands wet and cup your palms to get the right shape.

Warm a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium to high heat then fry the koftas, turning to colour them all over. As the fat renders from the meat you should get a beautiful caramelised crust around the outside of each kofta.

Finally you can throw together the sauce by combining the yoghurt, lemon juice, zest, garlic, olive oil, mint and salt in a small bowl and stirring well. Garnish with an extra swirl of oil on top.

Serve the koftas with your favourite flatbread. Time to get your hands dirty: stuff your bread with one or more koftas, lettuce leaves and a helping of onion jam, then top with yoghurt sauce and dig in!

This is Jane’s signature dish and her most sought-after recipe! A rice salad that is fresh and bursting with different flavours and textures. Just look at the brilliant colours: verdant coriander and pistachios contrast with ruby cranberries and jewels of pomegranate. The looks are more than matched by the taste: every mouthful is an explosion of sweet and sour, bitter and fresh, underlined by wholesome rice and nuts. It’s so good you could eat it as a meal on its own, although we more regularly have it as a side in a large spread. Perfect for a BBQ or picnic, just be ready to let your friends know where you got the recipe from ;).

This recipe is our favourite combination, but is ripe for experimentation. Don’t worry if you can’t get all the ingredients, add your own style! If you can’t get pomegranate, for example, try adding some more herbs instead. Mix up the nuts and fruit to your own taste. The dressed rice is a perfect canvas to create your own work of art.

Jane’s Rice Salad

Serves: 8 as a side

A fresh and surprise-packed rice salad that tastes as amazing as it looks!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups brown rice

2 limes

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Seeds from 1 pomegranate

1 cup currants

3/4 cup dried cranberries

2/3 cup pistachio kernels, roughly chopped

1/2 cup almond slivers

1 small bunch coriander, roughly chopped

Instructions

Cook the brown rice using your preferred method and set aside to cool in a large salad bowl.

Toast the pistachios and almonds in a 150°C oven (or a dry frying pan) until lightly browned, around 4-5 minutes.

Combine the zest and juice of the limes with the olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper to form a dressing. Mix into the rice thoroughly.

Add the remaining ingredients to the rice and toss to distribute evenly. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

To remove the seeds from a pomegranate, fill a large bowl with cold water. Cut the pomegranate in half crosswise, then hold a half cut side down in your outstretched fingers over the bowl. Give the back of pomegranate half several good whacks with a wooden spoon and the seeds, plus some pith, will drop into the bowl. Repeat with the other half. The pith will float so you can remove it easily, then gather the seeds by straining off the water.

The very first entry in our original Zesty Five was from the Felicity Cloake’s “How to cook the perfect…” column in the Guardian. If you’re not familiar with the column, each week Felicity takes on a classic dish, researching a variety of recipes and combining them into her own perfect version. That week Felicity took on the Moroccan classic: the Chicken Tagine.

Just a few days later on a glorious Easter Saturday, Jane and I decided to make a visit to Sydney Park. On the spur of the moment we decided we were close enough to Alexandria to walk over to The Grounds for lunch — hoping that it might be quieter than usual thanks to the holiday weekend. Well, we were wrong:

The place was packed thanks to their first birthday markets! We quickly gave up on a sit-down lunch, though we did share a burger. Instead we embraced the markets, and as luck would have it came across these little preserved beauties:

As they say: when life gives you markets, buy lemons! Or something like that, anyway. In fact we also picked up some lovely olives from the chatty man on the Salt Meats Cheese stand — I think you can see where this is going!

This was all the motivation we needed to take on Felicity’s tagine recipe. And by “we”, I mean Jane, because in this case I must admit I barely lifted a finger. Jane made a couple of modifications, in particular breaking down a whole chicken instead of using just thighs (this was the best chicken we could get with the skin intact), and using a cast iron pan rather than an actual tagine. But by and large she kept it true to Felicity’s formula, and the results speak for themselves:

The meat, including the breast, was succulent and flavourful – although I note that only the thigh stays just as juicy when reheated. There is a wonderful burst of flavour from the olives, preserved lemon and coriander — the things that originally drew me to this dish. But the real star is the broth. Felicity’s recipe shows restraint with the spices, and includes just enough water. There’s enough volume to soak through your cous cous, yet little enough to allow all the spices and juices to concentrate. Felicity nailed this recipe, and Jane prepared it perfectly. What a lucky trip to The Grounds that turned out to be!

It started with an avocado – an impulse buy as I was waiting in line at a market stall on Saturday morning. The fruit looked so ripe and appealing that I couldn’t resist. Then when I flicked to the back of the Good Weekend I saw Neil Perry had put together a taco “fiesta”. Mexican is So Hot Right Now: it was a sign.

What caught my eye in particular was the simplicity of Perry’s guacamole – just avocado, lime and seasoning. I took this as inspiration and ran with it – creating a prawn taco that showcases fresh ingredients by keeping things simple.

This dish is all about a classic combination of three flavours: chilli, lime and coriander. The fresh punch of these ingredients calls for a simple recipe, my one addition is the smokiness of paprika.

Ingredients

700g medium peeled prawns

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 small (hot) red chillis, finely sliced

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 large avocado

2 limes

1/2 red onion, very finely diced

1/2 cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped

1/4 wombok, shredded finely

12-16 small tortillas

Instructions

Peel and dice (or roughly mash) the avocado. Add the juice of one lime, stir, and season with salt and cracked pepper to taste.

In a bowl, mix the prawns, chilli, paprika, cayenne pepper and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season with salt and cracked black pepper.

Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. Fry the prawns quickly in two batches.

To fill each tortilla, add a layer of wombok, add prawns then top with avocado, onion and coriander.

Serve with grilled corn on the cob and wedges from the remaining lime. Add a squeeze of lime to each taco just before eating.

Notes

This is a great quick recipe, but if you have the time consider making your own tortillas. It takes a bit of effort but fresh bread is always worth it! If using packet tortillas warm them quickly in a pan before filling.

The prawns will be hot: that’s the idea! If you don’t like too much spice use a large (milder) chilli in place of hot ones and reduce the amount of cayenne pepper.

Any cabbage or even crisp lettuce will do to add some crunch to these tacos. I’ve got a soft spot for wombok, though!

Corn grills well in a griddle pan on high heat – just brush with a little olive oil. While you’re at it, try grilling half a lime and squeezing the juice to your corn just before eating.